1 the Work of an Invisible Body: the Contribution of Foley Artists to On

1 The Work of an Invisible Body: The Contribution of Foley Artists to On-Screen Effort Lucy Fife Donaldson, University of Reading Abstract: On-screen bodies are central to our engagement with film. As sensory film theory seeks to remind us, this engagement is sensuous and embodied: our physicality forms sympathetic, kinetic and empathetic responses to the bodies we see and hear. We see a body jump, run and crash and in response we tense, twitch and flinch. But whose effort are we responding to? The character’s? The actor’s? This article explores the contribution of an invisible body in shaping our responsiveness to on-screen effort, that of the foley artist. Foley artists recreate a range of sounds made by the body, including footsteps, breath, face punches, falls, and the sound clothing makes as actors walk or run. Foley is a functional element of the filmmaking process, yet accounts of foley work note the creativity involved in these performances, which add to characterisation and expressivity. Drawing on detailed analysis of sequences in Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) and Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988) which foreground exertion and kinetic movement through dance and physical action, this article considers the affective contribution of foley to the physical work depicted on-screen. In doing so, I seek to highlight the extent to which foley constitutes an expressive performance that furthers our sensuous perception and appreciation of film. On-screen bodies are central to our engagement with film; the ways they are framed and captured by the camera guides our attention to character and action, while their physical qualities invite a range of engagement from admiration, appreciation and desire to awe, fear and repugnance. The materiality of this embodied dynamic is often brought to the fore when we witness physical exertion, such as that presented in action movies or musicals, which invites increased kinetic and sensual alignment. We see a body jump, run, dance or crash and in response we tense, twitch, tap or flinch. The visual impact of on-screen labour is supported and enhanced by the sound a body makes when it moves: increases in the depth and rapidity of breathing communicate escalations in effort, a body straining to move faster; changes to the weight and rhythm of footfall indicate changes in the pace and force of the body moving. In short, sound plays a vital role in our perception of what film bodies are doing and experiencing. Approaching ideas of effort and response draws attention to the ontological duality of performance, to the fact that our reactions are made in relation to the activity of a character and that of the actor. Considering character and performer in this way addresses a possible clash between rhetorical (filmed) body and actual body, yet this is not an ontological split between behaviour and thought/intention, but rather a material or sensorial doubling. Reflecting on the impact of sound, the role it plays in proprioceptively engaging our own kinaesthetic awareness in the physical experience of the on-screen body’s activity, raises further questions about whose effort are we responding to. The doubled relationship between on-screen bodies is further complicated if we consider that there is another body embedded in the filmmaking process: the body we hear. Through detailed analysis of moments from Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media Issue 7, Summer 2014 2 Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972) and Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988), this article explores the contribution of a body that is invisible in the finished film yet shapes our responsiveness to on-screen effort—that of the foley artist. Effort and Performance Consideration of “effort” in film addresses technical and aesthetic aspects of screen performance: the lengths to which a performer has gone to inhabit a role; visible technical skill; the physical exertions of a performer as a character. Attending to effort in the critical analysis of performance provides an opportunity to focus on physicality and the kinetic appeal of movement on-screen, the work of the body and the significance of this to our engagement with film. Clearly effort connects to a range of potential meanings, not all of which involve physicalised labour, but in attempting to unpick the affective contribution of foley work, I will focus on the detail of expressive qualities of energy used in movement.1 As sensory film theory seeks to remind us, the experience of watching films is embodied and experientially complex, even creating an impact on our watching bodies by generating physiological responses, like goose bumps. Scholars such as Vivian Sobchack, Jennifer M. Barker and Laura U. Marks highlight the processes of active reciprocation between bodies on-screen and that of the viewer. As they note, such sensuous engagement is constructed through the combination of our lived experiences and the work of our bodies. That is, our perception of film is informed and guided by the full complexity of our sensory experiences, “fleshed out” by our “lived bodies” (Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts 60), and “grasped … by the complex perception of the body as a whole” (Marks 145). Such approaches are significant in their recognition not only of the impact of film on the watching body, but also in the extent to which our engagement is shaped in reference to our own physical experiences. While Deleuzian ideas concerning attitude, posture and force explored through his conceptualisation of the movement-image and writing on the “cinema of the body” in Cinema 2: The Time-Image (182–215) provide a potentially useful approach, this article addresses effort and affect from a different perspective. Examining the expressive role played by the body on-screen requires attention to both its physical rhetoric and the material texture of film, that is anything that might qualify our responsiveness, including rhythm, proximity and quality of movement, force or effort. Sensory Sound Writing on sound often underlines the extent to which it is a material phenomenon.2 Sobchack’s statement “I hear with my whole body” (“When the Ear Dreams” 10) conjures hearing as a tactile experience, while Rick Altman’s writing understands the processes of making and hearing sound as entailing molecular interaction with surrounding environments and surfaces (17–23). Such perspectives present the material qualities of sound as dissolving boundaries between exterior and interior, as sound penetrates to be felt within and through the body. Sound carries highly sensory qualities, its impact registered proprioceptively, or even interoceptively: “Sound can affect our body temperature, blood circulation, pulse rate, breathing, and sweating” (Sonnenschein 71). The importance of the sensory contribution of sound has been long argued for by Michel Chion, who stresses that the spectacle of cinema is audiovisual, consisting of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media Issue 7, Summer 2014 3 “sensations created by combinations of sound and images, greater than the sum of the parts” (“The Sensory Aspects” 235). A crucial element in Chion’s appreciation of the affect of film sound is to be found in his discussion of rendering, a concept which acknowledges that film sound is not necessarily concerned with the strict replication of reality, but rather the evocation of feeling and sensation in reference to real sound: it is “a sound that ‘translates’ not another sound but speed, or a force” (Film, A Sound Art 488). An example that Chion gives of rendering involves the contribution of sound to the body on-screen: “think of the sound effects that punctuate action scenes in many movies: the whirr and clank of swords and sabers in martial arts film translate agility; the sounds of punches in fight films translate the violence that the characters experience” (Film, A Sound Art 488). The kind of sound Chion is describing here is expressive, contributing to our sensuous engagement as it serves to “translate” character experience and the impression and quality of objects moving, the space they move in and their contact with other objects, bodies and surfaces. Foley: Rendering a Performance Foley artists recreate a range of sounds made by the body, including footsteps, breath, punches, falls and the sound clothing makes as actors move. Foley seeks to replicate how an action should sound, taking into account the feel of the object or surface with which the body on-screen is interacting: “A heavy cup in the film is a heavy cup on the Foley stage” (Ament 28). Their work also responds to how this interacting should sound in context, whatever the actor’s body is interacting with on set: “If Robin Hood bumps into a castle wall that happens to be made of plywood, the sound effect will have to be replaced … with the sound of the Foley artist’s bumping into the equivalent of thick stone” (Kawin 466). Rendering is at the heart of the process and depending on the film, foley can be made more or less realistic. Of course the question of aural fidelity is always a question of degree, but, as Chion observes, film sound is rarely retained in an original form even if it is recorded directly (Audio-Vision 95–6). What he terms the “illusion of unity” between the recording of diegetic sound and image relies on decisions made about what sounds to include and what to eliminate, as well as how to enrich or diminish them through postproduction (Audio-Vision 95). This may depend on the film’s genre, as noted by Sonnenschein: “The style of the film (especially comedy or terror) may allow exaggeration of the foley sounds” (41). What is included and excluded, what is enhanced and what is minimised, can be tied directly to expectations of the body and the kinds of affective relationship invited to it.

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